230 AM
by deathbride
Summary: This is the world of dreams, where D questioned himself and Orcot about all things that happened.
1. Chapter 1

Author: Death bride

Rating: K

Note: this story is supposed to begin when Leon Orcot and the count haven't been closed to each other yet. After the chapter "Daughter", to be clear. This is the world of dreams, where D questioned himself and Orcot about all things had happened.

Disclaim: PSOH doesn't belong to me, neither do its characters.

Ah, read and reply, please, 'cause this is the first time I write an English fanfic. And may be the last. This manga moves me so deeply that it makes me do something I'm usually not accustomed to do.

The first dream.

2.30 AM

2.30 am is always a magic moment. Even if you don't know, 2.30 am is always a magic moment. Respect the darkness, and slow down a bit at 2.30 am. If not, perhaps you will fall, fall forever into the silent storm of the dark silent city.

D woke up a 2.30 am. At first, he didn't know what to do. It was not the first time he suddenly woke up in the dead of night. Thousands of time before he had to leave his bed, or stay up all night, because of his shop, his animals or his duties. The most recent one was when this annoying detective called him at midnight, yelled into the phone about something D could not remember.

But this time was different. The count could feel it at once. The scent of the night had vanished. All his pets were silent. The count had an insecure feeling, as if time and spaces had chosen this very moment to twist. His red curtains, his books on the shelf, his Chinese robe…all gave him an "unreal" impression.

All looks exactly the way things had to be. Yet not.

Where was Q-chan? He was not here. D felt his throat so dry that he could not speak at all. Suddenly he realized how secure and peaceful this magical beings had always made him feel. Q-chan was always a truthworthy and faithful companion. Not like his grandpa, who spent all his time traveling throughout the world, not like his father, who…

Stop thinking about it. The young master of the pet shop ordered himself, like thousands of time he had done before.

Just simply stop thinking about it.

It was 2.30 am. . D closed his eyes in the bed for a long time. But when he opened his eyes again, it was still 2.30 am.

With a sigh, the young master left his bed, and after a period that was supposed to be 15 minutes, he had dressed up and opened the door.

No, it was still 2.30 am.

The streets were silent. Chinatown was silent. All the red lanterns had turned to dark. It was strange, Chinatown couldn't be silent, and neither could the human city. D knew.

The only thing moving in the street was the wind... As chilly as the sigh of a dying person. The only source of light was the moon. D looked at the cold and motionless moon hanging in the darkness. But tonight was not supposed to have moonlight. All Chinese knew.

"Good morning, my dear count D"

D turned his back. A point of light was floating behind him. Somebody was approaching, nearer and nearer. Coming from the darkness was a young woman. She dressed in black and held on her hand a glowing sleeping human baby. A black tiara was on her head. But from her voice, D could smell her smile. A mischief smile, like those D had thrown to his customers

Could she be some customer? But not, D knew that she was not. In fact, he could see there was something very inhuman in this young lady. Her steps didn't touch the street. The black lantern floating above her was not lit. And above all, it was her voice. She spoke with so light a voice, that it made you wonder if it was just your imagination or not.

"My dear count, if I were you, I would never come out of the shop at this time"

"I beg your pardon,"

"Oh, you don't need to be that polite…" She broke into a sudden laughter, so noisy that it made D feel uncomfortable. But the child was still sleeping.

And Q-chan was still nowhere to be found.

The black young lady stood before D. Her very existence raised in him a strong feeling of disgust. But the Chinese never told.

"In fact, we're neighbor, you see" The young lady continued with an especially high-pitched voice "I saw the rabbit you sold to that couples a few days ago..." She stopped, and when she spoke again, her voice broke into an uneasy high-pitched laughter "A very nice one, my dear count"

Q-chan was still nowhere to be found. D looked up to the moon. It was still motionless. Maybe it was not the moon at all.

D whispered to himself. Maybe it was not the moon at all. Just a stone lamp. Just a window on the stone sky, showing out the light from another world.

"Excuse me, count D. To have a chance to chat with you is very lucky, but something has to be done right now" The girl smiled again, D knew it. Maybe she smiled at him, too. D was not used to be smiled at. It was him who always did that to the customers. But this girl was not his customer, and clearly not more human than he was.

"I beg your pardon, but I haven't seen you in the neighborhood" D spoke silently, actually with no hope she would answer. There was something inside him telling D that this girl is not to be messed up with.

But that girl did answer. Again, D could feel her smile on him.

"Me? Oh, my count D. You must see that you have been too lucky not to meet me, too lucky not to be here…"

Where was Q-chan? A light suddenly set on D. Maybe Q-chan was still sleeping in the real world. Unfortunately, he was not here. Unfortunately, he could not be here. Unfortunately, he could not help D out of his own loneliness.

"Who're you? And where is this place?"

The question slipped through his lips before he had time to think about his manners.

"I am, count D, something similar to you" The girl silently spoke "And this place is the place no people should come. People. Or your races. You must have figured out already… how intelligent you are…"

She stopped to kiss onto the baby's fore head. The wind blew up the black tiara, and D could see in a moment a golden, beautiful eye.

"You see, it's not my intention to be here. And I don't know how to come back..."

"How is that rabbit? You know what will happen, right?" The girl asked. This question turned his smile into a cruel smirk.

The young lady nodded.

"Still you don't know where we are?"

They were in Chinatown, but this was not the real Chinatown. It was just the image of Chinatown. Duplication. Lonely and gloomy duplication.

"This is your heart, my dear count. And I am just like you. We are the shattered pieces of broken dreams"

The wind suddenly became stronger and stronger. Chinatown or the illusion of Chinatown melted into the dark. The tiara fled away, together with shattered hallucinations, and in her eyes, he saw the golden light of forgotten dreams.

"My job is to bring the dead children to their tombs" she said. "But this one cannot die. It's not allowed to die. It will have to suffer through its dreams. ..Do you feel like to look at it?"

No. D knew at once he'd rather not know. But he couldn't move. The darkness of his very dream tied his feet at the place. This girl moved forward. The baby suddenly opened his eyes and cried. But nobody would bother to answer. The baby's crying fell into the terrible silence of lost dreams. If only D could reach this human child with his hands and killed him, spared him forever from this cold and lonely world. But he could not. He could not touch the baby. His body became heavier and heavier untill it collapsed into the nightmare of the dark city.

When D opened his eyes the next morning, the sun was shining brilliantly over the noisy and colourful Chinatown and through his red windows.. There was nothing left of last night walk. Q-chan was next to him, sleeping in his bed. Maybe everything was just a dream.

The phone suddenly rang. But he didn't bother to pick up. It might be his customers, the detective, or even his father. Then it is silent again.

Anyway, he had to wake up. The time continue to flow. Never could he stand back like last night.

,,,And never could he tell anybody on earth, how in his lost dreams, he saw himself in the form of a dying human child.


	2. Chapter 2

_**Clones**_

_"So what with the tuxedo? I thought you only wore dresses?"_

_"Funny. It was my grandfather."_

_"Grandfather? Damn, the resemblance is freaky…"_

……………

He tried to open his eyes. The memory of yesterday conversation whirls up and down in his head. Leon had left. It began to rain. He stared at the photograph on the shelf. Yes, it was no surprise that Leon had made a mistake. They were so alike. He and his grandfather. And even his dad.

What a tired night! D said to himself when pouring more tea into his cup. The cake didn't seem as delicious as it should be. Leon bought it when he dropt in this evening, to make up for thinking that D was the murderer. It was not because of the cake or the detective. Just because he was exhausted, that's all.

Again, their customers had turned up, requested D something that his grandpa should have done. D no longer stared at the photo, but the images of his father and grandfather in his mind. As if somebody was holding a mirror before his eyes. Nothing was different but the eye color. Yet D knew that there was something more inside that distinguished himself from these two. But he could not figure out these things. Maybe he just didn't want to.

To be different was not a very important topic for them, after all.

How long had he not seen him, his father? It was too far from the night father looked him going away, hand in hand with grandfather. His eyes had been the ones of an onlooker. There was nothing as agreement or objection. Or D, who was back then nothing more but a little child, just couldn't see.

The tiny sound of his pet brought him back to reality. Q-chan touched him silently on his cheek, reminding him of the way grandpa had usually done to him on cold raining night.

"Don't worry, Q-chan. I'm ok" He smiled, petted on his head and recognized how much he loved to be alone with this silent companion.

…

2.

…

"Clone"

"Clone"

"You're my clone."

"No. it's you my clone"

What was this sound? D shacked his head, felt very dizzy after suddenly nodding off on his chair. The mono-colour of everything around reminded him of last month's dream. Again, the hands of the clock froze at 2.30 am. No everyday sounds. No everyday voices. And this time even the colors had faded back into some identical shadows. Just the red colour of his curtain stood out so brilliantly like blood from an unhealed wound.

No. It couldn't be. D didn't want to come back, although he didn't know why.

Q-chan? He called. But nothing answered. He called his pets. But there was again no sound. And the sound of people –talking from the far was not the same as his pets'. Not the same as anything on earth. Its shriek was as high and wild as the call of his very nightmares.

What to do now? What to do now, when darkness threatened your soul everywhere?

In a moment D wanted to step back and stayed safely in the shop until that blocked time decided to pass by. But again he rose from the chair and stepped out into the night, the illusion of Chinatown. There was something D wanted to know from this moment.

…

3.

…

"Young lady?" He heard himself calling "Are you here?"

"Black Lady? She's here, but also, not." Some voice answered him from the dark side of the moon. D looked around. But there was nobody in the dead street. All the windows were closed with black curtains and all lanterns had been burnt down into ashes…

"Who are you? Could you turn up?"

"I'm nothingness? Can "nothingness" appear?"

"So I am meeting with "Nothingness"?"

"Any human things will meet with nothingness"

"I'm not human"

"Yes, you are" The voice silently answered. Nothingness didn't say anything after that. But D knew it was still there.

Walking alone in the street lit by ghostly white moonlight, tasting the bitterness of every gust of wind that passed by, he felt that he could touch it, nothingness. Maybe it was around his very existence now.

Maybe it was nothingness in his father's look! Maybe it was nothingness that filled in his soul, his voice and his smirk on seeing his son leaving. Maybe his last kiss for D was also burnt with cold nothingness. Twenty years had passed, and tonight, it suddenly dawned on him why on that fateful day he had cried so much. "Grow up, my dear son, grow up with your grandfather, and continue the work we all have to do..."

4.

…The sound became nearer. And at a corner, D at last could see them. Two of them. Two clones or duplications of the young lady last time. The pose of their elegant necks, the position of their hands, even their black tiaras and dresses were exactly symmetrical with each other like reflections of a mirror. But the very girl that D had talked to was not there.

So was the child.

"You're my clone" One of the young lady said to another, without noticing him. They were pointing their delicate fingers into each other and spoke, like talking alone before a mirror.

"No, it's you my clone" The other said with the very same voice. D shivered a bit when seeing their eyes, one of each, showing out from two symmetrical corners of their black tiaras

One was a very deep violet. And the other, was golden.

"We're the same" they laughed.

"Yet not"

"Say yes?"

"Say no?"

"Cloning is dead"

"Who says"

"You say"

"Do I?"

"Yes, cloning is dead"

"Yet not"

"Why not?"

Somebody's hand stretched out behind D and pulled him back. He saw a golden and a violet eyes shining out in the dark like those of a leopard, and from the glowing child he could tell, yes, it was the girl from last time.

"What are you doing? I told you not to come here again," She said slowly with cold anger in her voice "They're in the middle of their cloning. They're blood-thirsty now."

"Are they your…clones?" D lowered his voice "You are the original, right?"

"My dear count, is there an original thing in a clone world?"

The tone of her voice filled his soul with sadness. The sadness was so thick that he too could feel and could even handle with his own hands. D let the girl touch him with her bare, white and long fingers, and caress his cheek in a slow yet uneasy way. The girl's mismatch eyes opened wide before him as she whispered into his ears, and placed her iceberg-like hand on his shoulder: "Come back, my dear count. Bind your eyes and bury your heart, just the way your ancestor do"

"Who's here?" The violet-eyed girl turned back and looked straight into their faces.

"He's not like us" The golden eyed murmured.

"Not a bit" The first replied.

"Not a bit!!!"

The next thing D knew was the terrible cry of the two girls. It stabbed into his ear so painful that he could not hear anything more. Opening up his eyes in terror again, he found himself alone in his pet shop, and the frightening sound turned out to be a phone call from his father.

4.

"My, my. Why do you have to do that? If you like that egg so much, you should have told me…"

"Father. How can you be so sure that I'm concerned?"

"How on earth can a normal person stalk into my lab? Enough with childish question, my beloved son…Then how is the egg now? It is…"

…Not big enough to fill the stomach of a hungry American. D smiled unconsciously. However, he would, of course, never tell these things to father. It would be the same as admitting his work. And he did not want to tell him about that very American, this annoying but fun-to-mess-with American.

"I'm tired, father. If you have nothing more to talk, I'm off."

From when had they held back so many secrets? D still remembered his childhood days, when he could run right to his father showing him tiny discoveries on his own walks. He could recall even every letter he had sent to his father about each hours and each day spent with grandfather. Letters that were never replied.

"Why do you have to be so angry? Couldn't you understand what I am aiming for, after all? Why do you have to make a mess over my experiment?"

"Grandfather will do the same thing" D said, unaware of letting out his secret. This sentence lasted in his tongue a bitter taste. Grandfather would have done exactly the same, if he had been here…Exactly the same thing…

For a long break, they did not say anything. Then it was his father who broke up the silence. Not joking, not at all. His voice was as soft and tired as the falling leaves slowing touched the autumn lake:

"I don't think so, my son. I really don't think so…After all, you're not grandfather, you're my beloved son…"

And it ended.

And it was his father to cut off the conversation. D held the phone, so long without knowing why. Nothingness. Maybe it was nothingness that was whispering into his ear, somewhere over the line…


	3. Chapter 3

_**The poet**_

Thanks for your reviews. I'm really struggling with English writing this fanfic, it is so difficult to write so long. But I simply could not stop now. That manga haunted me so deeply in many ways.

I think that, coming to this chapter, maybe someone recognised who this girl is.

1.

_Don't be afraid of me…there's nothing to fear…We're the same._

_The man said sweetly to the little kid. D held back. He pasted his eyes on the man strange smile. Moonlight, so brilliant and grandeur moonlight flew smoothly on black trees of the forest…Some birds were singing a peaceful nocturne from somewhere far away…_

_The man sat before him in the middle of the black forest. He had stopped singing, and now his look rested on D, the little kid attracted by his nocturne, the same as birds and little animals._

"_Who are you?" The little D asked._

_The man replied with a smile. "I'm the poet of human beings"_

2.

On a rainy afternoon, D headed back home after buying some sweets. On passing a store, he saw, through the glass, human television showing some film about pre-history time. Strange forests and fantastic animals. D knew it, he had seen them so many times.

Why don't human beings know that, due to them, many species living now will die out forever?

_Human beings are so stupid and cruel._

D said silently to himself. Suddenly, beside him, a low voice whispered:

"They are not."

D looked back. From the dim light of the twilight, he could see, standing there on the damn pavement was a young man. D knew him. He lived in Chinatown, survived on merely bread and water. A poet with never-published verses.

The poet stayed still, looking at the young count with a bright yet deep pair of black eyes. As deep as the ocean. Having meet many kinds of people, D knew that only true poets had those beautiful and fragile eyes.

"They are not. My count, they are not."

The poet repeated firmly. His eyes were still shining with some light from another world, thousand of times more pure and innocent a world. Looking straight into them, D recognized, with a painful feeling in his heart, this was exactly the man singing alone in the forest in his childhood dream. With those last words, he turned his back and moved away.

He died on the very night. It was widely believed, and to human, it was true that he was killed in a car accident.

Yet D knew that it was not an accident. He has been murdered. The darkness of the city, the coldness of the human society had killed the poet, its poet, the way it had done so many times ago.

Yes, nearly twenty years ago D had witnessed that man was killed. And now the same thing happened again. There was nothing he could do, but wondering why the man, the poet had to be reborn again. Maybe belief was something hard to kill.

Putting flower onto his tomb, D could not stop asking.

"If you are reborn once more time, will you still believe in human beings?"

3.

Day in day out, it was the same routine going on. Leon would come and trouble D with nonsense question. They would have some quarrels while having tea. This close-minded American sometimes made D so angry that he could not keep his temper and told the totetsu to eat Leon directly. It was lucky, however, that T-chan was enough intelligent to know that D never really meant so.

Maybe he had recognized this simple truth when coming home with Leon in a full moon night, after accidentally pulling him into his "nostalgic dream" of the time human had not existed.

_Ah, Detective Orcot, what am I going to do about you? I really enjoy your companion. One of these days, I may not let you leave_

Sometime D questioned himself how they could come into this situation. He tried to persuade himself that Leon was nothing but a normal person, a normal _game_ to him. But he could not hide the fact that, however rude, impolite, short tempted and close-minded the detective seems to be (Alas, he is American, anyway), he just could never, never hate Leon.

Tonight Leon did come again. They talked, or, in fact, argued for a long time. After that, Leon suddenly became quiet. When D began to lose his patience and though of a way to kick Leon out of the shop, the detective asked, out of the blue: "Tell me, is tonight…a full moon one?"

D nodded without quite getting what he was trying to say. Leon sighed, and stood up, smiled: "Good night. Have fun at the museum."

The detective had not forgotten.

Was Leon wrong, at last, when trying to save him and kill the beast this night?

4.

"Good evening, count D, might I join you?"

D looked up and was at once taken apart. Because it was this very young lady, the lady that had appeared in the lost land. She stood still in one window of the museum, in the bright moonlight, the real moonlight, which was so unusual that D at first could not believe in his eyes. She sneezed on smelling the incense, but quickly smiled, bowed her head and said: "My apology for the last time we meet. May those cherry tarts be enough to show my regret?"

"You don't have to…Please come in, I will make you some tea."

D smiled politely when his only wish was this girl to vanish. She sat down, D closed his eyes and slowly opened them again, taking deep breaths to make sure that the safe real world was still surrounding him.

Her cherry tarts were quite delicious and normal, to his surprise. The black tiara covered nearly all of her face now, yet it still showed out a corner of her smile:

"Chinese tea, I assume?"

"Yes. The best of it. Go very well with cake. Although Chinese people traditionally…don't put sugar on it" D admitted.

"My dear count" She lied her back on the chair and laughed, something like mocking "Sometimes I see you drinking Chinese tea while wearing something like Japanese dress and sitting on your feet like a Japanese... And you celebrate the Chinese Middle Autumn Moonlight Festival the way only Japanese do…I'm not a regionist…but if you ask me, it's very…funny"

There's no way to deny it, she was right. D tried hard to prevent himself from blushing, he could not tell why, but the most ridiculous thing he found is not what she said, but the fact that he had never noticed it.

"You don't have to be embarrassed" The girl began again "Anyway, there's no really perfect story in an imperfect world. Maybe it's the imperfectness that makes your story so beautiful."

"Which sorry? I'm sorry" The count felt, seldom in his life, his patience was running out. First Leon. And now this girl. Bad day. "I don't quite get what you're saying"

She refused to answer with a very gentle bow of her head. Knowing he could not get more information, D changed to another topic:

"How are the two…clones from last time?"

"I killed them." She answered calmly.

"You mean…what?"

"I mean what I say. I killed them."

"Why?" D asked coldly.

"They nearly killed you, anyway. We're just clones, my count. We have no soul. We exist to full fill a duty" With those words, a strange darkness felt onto her voice as well as his heart.

"Any way, that killing is guilty is just a human thing. They are the only creatures trying to tell good from bad, and invent some thing like hope and dream" She smiled "They are so stupid and pitiful, aren't they?"

Some memory slowly rose up in his heart. Last month…the full moon…this very museum, and the detective, with his gun aimed at the wild beasts…He tried to wipe away those memories, tried not to think of the detective before such a dangerous thing. When he looked up, a strange yet sad smile ran across the face of the young lady.

The incense had worked. The scene of the deep forest appeared. They were sitting on the ground now, drinking tea when seeing giant birds flying in the sky. D didn't want to think about it, the uncertain feeling of his own in this warm and lively illusion.

D stood up and decided to walked around. Maybe he could meet more animal and some kinds of fish, down there near the stream…. Putting his hand into the stream, he tried to wash his face and more importantly, his mind. But the cold water just slipped through his face.

"What are you doing! Please stop! We cannot interfere!"

What was that? It was his sound, together with the gunfires, and the groans of beast, in the forest. D turned his back and saw, to his horror, the very scene of last time. How could this happen? But everything was happening again, before his eyes, for him to look at as an outsider. Leon was firing at the animal, and D saw himself, the illusion of himself, ran forward, yes, it was the same…

No!

In a moment, the space seemed to twisted, and D saw, the one were tore up was not him, but Leon, the detective struggling to escape from the animal, but there was no way, D knew there was no way he could win.

"Detective!"

D heard himself screaming, and when he felt the arm of some body pulling him back, did he noticed that he was trying to rush forward. The girl with black tiara staring at him with both her golden and violet eyes and said with a cruel smirk:

"It was just what you say, count D. we could not interfere."

Everything suddenly became black. D felt himself falling in some inexplicable darkness. The girl still crying out into his ear: "It was just what you say, count D. we could not interfere."Screaming aloud, he woke up, and recognized, he was alone in the cold museum.

"If you are reborn once more time, will you still believe in human beings?"

"Yes. I will"

Somebody was talking to him outside the window. D tried to stand up- his head still ached so much that he wanted to faint. There was nobody there. But the poet must be beside him now.

Yes. I will.


	4. Chapter 4

**The circle.**

_Oh..are there any one of you tired of seeing that black lady again? _

_Next chapters are devoted to D's father. And Monica..._

_1._

"Some how you managed to get here, right?"

"Grandfather!" D could not believe in his eyes. It was his grandfather who was wandering in his empty nightmare at 2.30 am. His black long cloak was just the same as when he left the shop, many years ago.

They were standing here, in the emptiness of his nightmare. A surreal world when light was not light any more, but some variation of darkness, and sounds seemed to be so distant.

"What are you doing here?" D asked, coming forward to his grandfather. He leaned his head on his grandfather's shoulder, and felt his grandfather's hand moved tenderly on his head. There was no answer to his question. The warm feeling of meeting his grandfather again, even just in dream, purified some part of his confused head. He wanted to rest like this again, the way it had always been when he was a little kid.

Rest. And sleep peacefully. Without any worries about the shop, the human beings…

"You have not changed a bit."

"Why?" The strange question made D raised his eyebrows "Of course I would not change. The same to you. You know it, grandfather…"

"I'm sorry. It's just I'm missing the way you grew up everyday…" His grandfather replied by something like a smile. D suddenly realized, to his surprise, how old his grandfather was. Not in his face, not in his look. It was the tone of his voice: so tired and calm. The voice of a person who had to travel and understand too much.

"It's a matter of fact. One will always miss the way children are when they are still small…"

A lightning suddenly splashed through his mind, D looked up to his grandfather and said the thing just appearing in his head:

"Say, grandfather, have you met with Nothingness?"

Not the answer did he receive. The thing his grandfather gave him was a hug. It was so similar, yet so different from those they had a long time ago. This time, it was not that his grandfather protected him from all dangers in the world. Vice versa might be more correct. No. Maybe they were supporting each other at the same moment. In his heart, D felt a bitter feeling of loneliness…They are the same, but they just could not be one…

He heard his grandfather, at last, whispering in her ear, at with that, all the world and sound blurred into some chaotic world.

_All human things will meet with Nothingness. There's no way to hide. It was really here._

2.

_Count._

_Count!_

D woke up and felt Christ's hand on his head. _You look pale, are you OK, count?_

His innocent and deep blue eyes calmed him down for a moment. He was so naïve and kind. And so different from Leon!

"Where is your sister, count?" Leon suddenly asked. D's heart missed a beat but he tried to ignore it, smiled and answered: "Came back to father…"

_Why nightmares now? And why…grandfather?_

Leon laughed, and then went away. Never would that damn stupid detective notice what D's drinking- this hot red liquid seemed to be boiling in his throat right now. But it was because D could never tell Leon; never tell him or anyone on earth. He did not need to share and open his heart, he knew it and believed it, but the bitterness of her blood, yes, _her blood_, filled his heart with so much guilt that he found it hard to stay alone.

She was innocent. She was innocent. And D had killed her, oh, right, this was just self-defense. But he was drinking her blood now to survive. It was her wish, again, it was definitely her wish, but it was undeniable that he was committing a crime only human had done: He had destroyed something only to survive. The feeling of crime was just too heavy to bear. But he had to bear it. It was his choice.

The smell of her blood still could be sensed somewhere around. Or just his imagination? This scene would haunt D to death, the smell of her blood and the last look she put on him would haunted him to death, he understood…

_Father, how could you put me in such a situation?_

_You have changed a lot, grandfather. D murmured to himself. Did you grow tired of this duty? Did you decide to leave out everything and close eyes before the cruel world? Did you decide on going away and trying to ignore what your son is doing at this moment? If not, then why you disappeared?...Disappeared, and left me alone, after sending Q-chan to him…Again, Q-chan was cute. He was helpful and lovely to be with…But he just…_

_**He was just not you, grandfather!...He just could not replace you.**_

D took a deep breath, told Christ to leave him alone for a moment. He closed his eyes and took some sips of tea. But it was not good.

He could not decide whether to hate, or to feel sympathy to his grandpa…

D looked out the shop and saw, in the pavement, a young student standing, staring at him.

3.

"Because you're Chinese"

The student said, calmly enough to make D surprise. That was her answer when D saw her before the pet shop and happened to ask her, with his sweet manner, of course, why she stared at him with so scary a look.

"You're Chinese, and that's the reason." She repeated again. This time the calmness had disappeared. Her eyes were burning with deep hatred and her fingers were twisting with anxiety as if they wanted nothing more than to jump to D's neck and squeeze it until he died. D knew it at once, if there had been a knife in her hand, she would have not hesitated to stab him to dead. But she didn't, so she just ran away before his eyes.

What was with that girl?

"You don't understand, really?"

That lady-in-black again. D recognized that high-pitched voice at once and tried to ignore. But there was just no way. D could tell that she had entered the shop, bringing with her the cold breath of nightmares. With her slender fingers, she touched him on his shoulder. And laughed.

"Again you come here, miss." D said without opening his eyes. He was forced to see her tiara, and hear her laughter.

"That girl belonged to a race which was nearly destroyed by Chinese troops, thousands of years ago…" She said with an interesting look on her face. "Of course she hates you to the bones!"

"Why me, then? This is Chinatown. There's hundreds of Chinese…"

"But not all of them wear long dress all the time, right?"

With that sentence, D felt her long icy finger find its way to his collar. He tried to look back and shot her a warning glance. But the girl did not stop. Her rested her fingertip on his lips, and laughed.

"That's how human beings." He said, tried to turn away. "Holding such an ancient hatred and…"

"Oh, oh.."

Before D knew what was happening, she had leaned toward him and laughed her head off:

"Listen to who're saying!"

D knew what she was aiming at, so he just remained silent.

"A circle with no end, count D" The young lady pressed her hand on his head and forced him to look straight into her mistmatched eyes. Those eyes were so similar to his, he could not tell why. "You and me are in the circle with no end…"

"It will end. My circle- as you say" D replied "When human beings paid for their crimes…"

"And you must exist to see that day, right."

She smirked, and at the same time, he felt too dizzy to stand on his feet.. .

"Don't be that gloomy about killing, D. Was that vegetable you ate each day living things? Living meant nothing like wish or hope. We all have to destroy something to exist, the same thing goes with human."

It was just not right! It was something human do, not things like him! But that girl still clutched him in her arm, and whispered in his ears with so soft a voice:

_Tell me, D, is a tiger feel any pity for the rabbit he killed?_

She asked. And with an unnaturally sweet smile, the young girl added: "That's what gods want. Destruction. And that's what Gods want me to do, too."

Before D could understand what she was saying, the young lady had bitten into his shoulder, so painful that he just wanted to shout. But he could not... He felt her teeth deep in his flesh, and he was bleeding now, warm blood poured between them…He heard her little cry of pleasure, yet he seemed to be frozen in pain…

"I'm the nightmares. I'm the nightmares, tell me who I am…Or you would be my prey, D…"

D tried and managed to push her away. The girl stood back, licking the rest of his blood in her fingers and lips. His blood was still dripping from her hands. Her eyes were glistened like children eating cake. When she began to speak again, her voice lost its softness, became harsh and full of bloodthirstiness.

"Tell me the answer, the fullest answer, D, the answer for your existence, the answer for truth."

"If not?" D asked, tried to conceal his terror.

"Then you would be consumed by nightmare. Then you would come back this nightmare of 2.30 am, forever…You could wake up the next morning, but you could never escape. Your soul would be my food, your blood would be my drink." The girl smiled, some strange light sparkling in her eyes. She raised her black tiara. Laughed madly and vanished into thin air…

4.

Christ was still sleeping. Good for him. D felt relief when seeing his innocent sleeping face. But it was strange that nobody noticed. Nobody, even his pets. Maybe, oh, maybe nightmares were things you had to go through alone, no matter whether they happened in real life or not.

But it was time for him to think it over again. How could he let those people come into his life like that? Sometimes looking at Leon and Christ playing, he could not stop question himself, at last, who were those persons? He really enjoyed being with them, he knew it. Nevertheless, he also knew someday he would have to leave…To some city, set down a shop, and then go again…He had changed, he knew. But it was too small to really escape. And still he did not want to escape, however tired he was.

It was really a circle. With no end.

"Grandfather!"

There was no answer; however, there was some strange smell on the air. Blood. The nightmare had not yet vanished. It was happening right now, in reality. D understood, at least, one point now. He had to find the answer, or he had to suffer from something even more terrible than death.

5.

_What is hatred, grandfather?_

_Oh, my grandson, it was a circle with no end. It was a block of time. A frozen smile of immortality... We had turned into this frozen block of time, we had chosen it, our species had done…_

_But grandpa, time would not stoop. It could not be frozen…_

_To others, time still flow. But to us, time was dead. We were corpse in a frozen dead block of time…That was our fate, the fate we had chosen…_

_Frozen block of time?A circle with no end? Like what_?

_**Like the nightmare of 2.30 am.**_


	5. Chapter 5

--

_Thank you for reading and reviewing. There is one main reason that I'm afraid of writing fanfic, because I'm afraid that nobody would share my thoughts about the manga._

_Ah. Happy Chinese New Year everybody, although it is a bit too early_

**The child**

"Christ! Christ! Calm down, tell me, what happens?"

The young count hurried into Christ's room, his face was still pale at the child's scream. Christ was sitting on his bed, crying with a terrified look in his face. D sat down beside the bed and said to Christ with the softest voice he had:

"Is this a nightmare?"

The child nodded. D managed a tired smile. It was nearly 2.00 AM:

"Then calm down. Nightmares were not real, right?"

"Damn you, cry boy!" The totetsu suddenly interrupted, his eyes flaming with anger " You're the brother of a tough, brave detective! And all you do is to cry out like a baby!"

"T-chan!" D snapped. The totetsu was silent at once, and gave D a strange glance. Turning back to Christ, the count said: "Would you come to my bedroom, Christ?"

The child nodded again. D noticed that he had not heard Christ saying a single word after rushing into the child's bedroom. Holding his hand, the count led Christ back to his own bedroom. He lit a small light on the wall for Christ not being afraid of darkness. After covering Christ with his blanket, D suddenly heard the child whispering

_Count_.

"Yes, Christ?"

_Promise me that you would never leave.._

D nearly found himself frozen in the first time. The child's innocent eyes pasted on his face now…This strange feeling rising in his heart…is this what human called "pain"?.

_Please, promise you that you would never leave…could you? Count?_

"Yes" The Chinese man smiled quickly, putting his hand gently on Christ's forehead. "You have my word."

How bright was the child's smile at this moment. D just could never think that he could make somebody that happy…The child fell asleep quickly after that, leaving D with his confused head. He just could not sleep. D tried to memorize the face of the sleeping boy, the hair, and the smile on his sleeping face…. Again, he told a lie…

Outside his scarlet windows, the night wind was still singing…

"You'd better got a child of your own, Count." T-chan yawned, somewhere in the shadow of the shop curtain.

….

D rose from the bed and wandered into the kitchen. He was surprised that T-chan was here. The wounded totetsu was cooking something with a frown face, totally ignored whatever his master said. Giving up, the count came back to the front room, sipping some cold tea.

Yesterday was a tired day for all of them. This morning, that stupid detective drove his brother and D into a stupid case. They were kidnapped by some mad woman with hatred for Leon. Poor Christ, he had been looking at D with nervous eyes after he was shot although the count had reassured him that he was OK.

"Guessing you can't sleep again" The totetsu came in, placed something before D, but he refuse to eat. The totetsu did not say a word. He leaned on the long coach, glanced at D and suddenly asked:

"Was this your old man? The one looked exactly like you, appeared and treated my wounds when you are kidnapped?"

"Yes." D answered sharply.

"I have never heard you talked about him before." The totetsu threw his master and inquiring look "Why didn't he live here?"

"I don't know, T-chan. I really don't know…" D somehow managed a smile.

"Whatever." The totetsu sighed. They both were silent for a long time, until D decided to break the silence.

"Father was always rather…abnormal…"

"..Crazy." T-chan cut in, spoke out exactly the word D was thinking but at the same time, trying very hard to disguise. The young master looked up with surprise, and found out, to his embarrassment, T-chan was simply reading this word from D's eyes.

"Not really like that…but to tell the truth, I thought he was trying to harm Christ at one time…"

"But he didn't, right?"

Didn't. Or just not yet. Who knows?

The totetsu yawned again, laid his head onto his master's laps, and said, half-asleep:

"Thought you should call him and say sorry…"

D laid his hand in the totetsu head, took a quick glance at the corridor…This way led to the phone. He should have stood up, should have called father, and should have thanked him for saving T-chan. But D stayed motionless. He didn't want his pet to tell him what he should do, and most of all…father…he was just so far away…

How surprisingly, in the moment of life and death, D had found himself memorize exactly every words father had taught him, however mean, dangerous and maybe, crazy sometime he thought his father to be. Like the bird flying back to the north in the spring, like the sea gulls finding their way to the mainland every sunset, in this dangerous moment he had turned back to father. Or just memory of his father in his mind. Twenty years had passed by…and they had never met each other again…

…

Leon dropt in the next morning. It all turned back to usual routine. Leon and D had a quarrel over the breakfast, and this time, it ended with Leon storming out of the shop, cursing nearly everything he saw, things that had never shouted in to his face beautiful words like "uneducated". "Foul mouthed" or stub like that. After the fight, D came back and found Christ looking up to him with watery eyes: _Why didn't you two stop fighting?_

Well, maybe T-chan was right. Maybe Leon and he did spoil Christ too much.

"Never. Christ. Never" D stressed each words to the child. How could he stop being bothered with Leon ignoring all he said about the detective's manner?

_D. _

Christ looked up again. This time the child's deep blue eyes looked straight into his eyes.

_Do you hate my brother? Is he so troublesome to you?_

The count stopped eating cake. He didn't know how to answer. Leon was troublesome, and sometime D wished nothing more than kicking the detective out of his shop. But fighting with the detective was really some kind of fun. D wondered from when he let things between him and Leon turn into such a familiar scene.

And he could not let himself grow familiar with anything. Sooner or later, he would have to leave…

"I didn't hate your brother, Christ." The count finally said, and added "Although your brother was the most pig-headed, short-tempted, uneducated American that I have ever seen."

Christ didn't mind the uneasy tail of what D said. Maybe it was enough for him. Maybe it was enough to now that D didn't hate Leon, for any reasons.

Pon-chan and T-chan pulled the kid back into some kind of adventures around the shop. The count remained silent. Yes. He could not let himself grow familiar with anything. Sooner or later he would have to leave. And this time was not very far away. D could smelt the danger rushing nearer and neared like tide in a full moon night.

_Promise me, count, that you would never leave…_

_It just could not always be this way, Christ_. The count closed his eyes, and counting every seconds slipping thought the morning. Even if the count could stay, Christ would soon go away…As children growing tired of old toys and fairy tales. The time took away human's innocent truth in magic and miracles…You have to forget so many things just to grow up…

The count stood up, looking at Christ playing outside the shop. It was a warm morning in Chinatown. Sunlight poured from the blue sky onto the child and his magical friends. The wind was also sweet. The child was protected here, in this clear morning, away from nightmares…

The count watched, smiling to himself, and thought with something similar to pain in his heart: _You would forget us, sooner or later, Christopher Orcot_. _You and your brother_. Was it just like the children forgetting to fly in Peter Pan, a book Leon brought to the shop after D complained about "stupid comic" he bought for his brother…

_But till this time, let us protect you from devil nightmare._

…

"Good evening, count D. I never know that you are so mother-like"

D came to the window. Somebody was really calling him from the dark. Christ and his pets were having fun in the shop. Nobody could see the danger, but him.

"You again? Miss?"

"Don't be so cool, don't be so cool!" The girl laughed "You knew you were the one who began all those thing. I told you not to come back, remember? But did you follow my good advice?"

"Stop with all of you and go away!" The count said coldly, looked over his shoulder to make sure that the child was all right.

"I'm not interested in this human child, my count. I'm interested in you."

"Didn't you send Christ the nightmare yesterday?"

The girl with the black tiara smiled silently. Her seemingly wicked eyes suddenly full with sadness and sorrow. D suddenly realized how being with Christ and Leon was this enjoyable. He didn't have to put on the smiles used when dealing with human.

"Not me. Nightmares were the same, after all. They were all born from fear and loneliness…I need the answer, count, I need the answer."

"For what?"

"The future."

The conversation was suddenly interrupted by a child cry. D saw, this time, the girl was carrying a child in her hand. The same child she had been carrying in the night they met each other the first time…This child was still glowing, and in the darkness he cried out but nobody could come for help…

He would die, this poor creature. D could tell his breath was becoming weaker…

"I need the answer, count, I need the answer…"

With those words, she and the child melted gradually into some kind of dark liquid. It licked through the window and flew slowly around D. The girl's voice still echoed in his head:

"I need the answer, my dearest count, I need the answer…"

Nightmares were the same, after all. They were all born from fear and loneliness…

There was nothing in the street. The dark, sad-looking liquid had vanished…Chinatown was the same again…But the night hanging over the bright neon lights seemed to be darker than usual…

"I have no fear," The count said. "And neither am I lonely…"

At that moment, the laughter of Christ and the pets suddenly fled to his ears, and it stabbed into his heart like a sharp arrow...


End file.
